Prosecutors Urge Use Of Evidence In Murder Retrial

Search Warrant's Admissibility At Issue

DuPage County prosecutors will seek to convince a criminal court judge that information obtained with a questionable search warrant should be used in the murder retrial of Svondo Watson of Chicago.

Watson, 26, a former basketball player at Taft High School, had been found guilty of the 1994 murder of Leo McDaniel, his former friend, after a dispute over drug money. He was sentenced to 90 years in prison.

But the Illinois Appellate Court earlier this year overturned the conviction and sent the case back to DuPage County for retrial. The appeals court found that Watson's previous attorney did not question the legality of a search warrant used by Lombard police to obtain evidence against Watson.

Paul DeLuca, Watson's current attorney, said the appeals court ruled that the search warrant is invalid and evidence collected through it is not admissible.

Assistant State's Atty. Joseph Ruggiero said his office believes the Appellate Court is questioning the validity of the search warrant, but did not declare it to be illegal.

Ruggiero conceded in court Monday that the search warrant is important to the case against Watson and asked for a hearing on its validity. That hearing was approved by Judge Ann Jorgensen, who had sentenced Watson after the earlier conviction.

Ruggiero also said that prosecutors are considering seeking the death penalty against Watson in the upcoming retrial.

In the first trial, prosecutors said McDaniel was a gang member and a drug dealer and Watson transported drug money for him.

Watson, who was on a basketball scholarship at Langston University in Langston, Okla., is accused of entering a Lombard apartment while McDaniel slept and shooting him and wounding McDaniel's girlfriend.